1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a power-supply controller of a computer which minimizes power-consumption. If there is no user input for a predetermined period of time, the controller reduce the power-supply to the computer and peripherals. If there is still no input after another period of time, the present invention further reduces the power-supply to the computer and its peripherals.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent times, products for achieving both power savings and environmental protection have been the market trend.
Most of the power-supply controllers of computer systems can minimize the propagation of electromagnetic waves and reduce power-consumption by cutting off the power source when a user intentionally turns off a power-switch or selects a reduced power operation mode.
Environmental groups in the United States and Europe, in particular, are requiring power saving mechanisms for computer systems. Their plan is to reduce the large power loss from idle computer systems by making power saving mechanisms on computer systems compulsory. For this purpose, many personal computers including notebook computers have been equipped with a means for saving power.
The present invention automatically turns off peripheral devices such as hard disks, floppy disks, video cards and other peripherals added to the computer system when a user does not input any information for a predetermined period of time. Thus, the power-saving method of the present invention reduces power-consumption effectively in all of the peripheral equipment of the computer system. In a normal mode of the computer's operation, if there is no keyboard input for a predetermined period of time, or no command from the peripheral equipment to the Central Processing Unit (CPU), the computer enters a sleep-mode from the normal mode by which power is conserved. The sleep-mode controls the amount of power which is supplied to each peripheral device (HDD, Monitor, CPU Clock, etc.).
However, when the computer is in the sleep-mode and power is cut-off from the peripheral equipment, a resume-mode will be entered when there is any input or command which requires the operation of the computer system again from either the peripheral equipment, or from the keyboard. Consequently, the resume-mode also controls the amount of power which is supplied to each of the peripheral devices.
Without the present invention, a constant power of about 30 Watts produced by the power-supply is consumed continuously. In other words, when the computer is not being used, the repeated operation of changing from normal-mode to sleep-mode can decrease the power-consumption below 30 Watts thereby reducing unnecessary power loss and waste. Consequently, about 30 Watts is consumed if the power-supply is not interrupted as in the present invention.